You know how we’ve been trying to figure out why PapaDick and BabyDick never claim waterboarding worked with Rahim al-Nashiri? Ali Soufan tells us what we didn’t learn from him using torture: details of his operation on the Arabian peninsula.

A third top suspected terrorist who was subjected to enhanced interrogation, in 2002, was Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the man charged with plotting the 2000 bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole. I was the lead agent on a team that worked with the Yemenis to thwart a series of plots by Mr. Nashiri’s operatives in the Arabian Peninsula — including planned attacks on Western embassies. In 2004, we helped prosecute 15 of these operatives in a Yemeni court. Not a single piece of evidence that helped us apprehend or convict them came from Mr. Nashiri.

And what we didn’t learn from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed–the location of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri–is even more incendiary.

Mr. Mohammed knew the location of most, if not all, of the members of Al Qaeda’s leadership council, and possibly of every covert cell around the world. One can only imagine who else we could have captured, or what attacks we might have disrupted, if Mr. Mohammed had been questioned by the experts who knew the most about him.

I doubt either Cheney will be asked that question, as they seem to be picking their interviewers very carefully.

It annoys me that they’re using “Torture worked” as their defense. They’ve changed the debate to “If it worked, it was worth it”. Even you’re getting sucked in, the point of your post is that torture mostly didn’t work. Which is the debate that Cheney wants.

The point (and you’ve made it made many times) is that torture is illegal, immoral, unconstitutional and generally against our international interests. Even if it works.

Boxturtle (If you let them drag you down to their level, they’ll beat you with experience)

“So how long until PapaDick and BabyDick and their apologists start getting asked about how torture may have prevented us from finding Osama bin Laden?” EW, finding, capturing or killing OBL was never the goal. He’s much more valuable alive, as a bogeyman to cudgel the fearful American sheeple into submission. It works extremely well with the righties because fear drives all their thoughts and beliefs anyway.

The point you’re all missing (except azportsider @5, who posted while I was writing)- especially the NYT when they bemoan not catching any of the 9/11 plotters or bin Laden or anyone despite 8 years already of war – is that the purpose of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and who knows where else was not to solve anything.

Never was.

The purpose of those wars was not to end al Qaeda’s existence – through bombs, bullets or verdicts in a courtroom.

The purpose of these wars was, and remains, to have wars.

Having wars allows the Excutive to have, use, keep, and expand its power at the expense of everyone else. The last thing Deadeye or anyone else in the national security establishment wants is to see an end to al Qaeda.

-
By way of example: These clowns were all old enough (as am I) to have seen and remember what happened when the US won the Space Race. 1969, Armstrong and Aldrin return safely from the moon. Kennedy’s goal accomplished. Even as they were coming back from the moon, there were reports in the media calling out that, hey, if we can send a man to the moon, we can surely solve this or that social problem, so let’s take the money and put it to use here on earth. And that’s what happened. So, it should be obvious, that bin Laden and the rest of al Qaeda will never be captured. Doing so would run against every institutional interest.

Are we all going to spend the rest of our lives talking about finding a guy who’s been dead for years? I have an idea, let’s ask Benazir Bhutto if it is still possible to “find Osama.” Oh, that’s right, we can’t find her either, because she’s dead too – an event that came to pass not long after she informed the world via the BBC that Osama was killed.

Let’s focus on the guy who ordered both of these US assets killed, Dick Cheney.

Mr. Mohammed knew the location of most, if not all, of the members of Al Qaeda’s leadership council, and possibly of every covert cell around the world. One can only imagine who else we could have captured, or what attacks we might have disrupted, if Mr. Mohammed had been questioned by the experts who knew the most about him.

At what point do we begin to ask if torture was intended for other purposes, not merely to build a case between al Qaeda and Iraq, or to get information about al Qaeda but badly?

At what point do we begin to ask if torture to suppress any chance of obtaining information?

The Cheneys may be defending torture of KSM and not that of al Nashiri not because “torture worked” on KSM and not on Nashiri — but because KSM had information to hide and Nashiri did not.

Suppressing info about al Qaeda and OBL would permit the continuance of the assault and occupation of Iraq and the forever war; we would continue to chase a ghost to the benefit of certain powers, forces and entities.

Those of us who are already in the anti-torture camp have already pursued the approach of keeping the debate on the level of illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, and detrimental to our interest internationally. However, we are not arguing just amongst ourselves. We are arguing with very powerful people clinging to their only remaining life-preserver that torture worked. If we can also show that to be false, the pro-torture camp has nothing left to hold on to. At that point the political wind will shift sufficiently that investigations and prosecutions can ensue. At that point no one will listen to Villagers who continue to screech “political witchhunt” at the top of their shrill little voices.

Now we begin to see why Liz Cheney’s sticking her own neck out. OBL was the bogeyman she used to do her own job with DoS under Daddy’s regime. She needed OBL, and she still needs OBL out there, a roaming phantom of nebulous threat, if she’s going to be able to capitalize on her career with DoS for her future aims.

Methinks Papa and Baby will continue to sing their tune long after all the evidence is in.

Please, don’t forget who Baby Dick is married to, what things he was likely involved in (re his service in 3 sites of the bush&cheneyco crime spree), and why her own personal welfare (along with that of her 5 children) may be bound up in keeping a lid on all of this. There’s no doubt PapaDick is the linchpin (wish it was lynchpin, but oh well…) but her husband is clearly one of those who obeyed orders (and gave them) and may also be in this up to his hairline (to quote Rayne above).

Mr. Mohammed knew the location of most, if not all, of the members of Al Qaeda’s leadership council

That’s the one statement from Soufan on which I stumble a bit. The only way we would know for sure that it is true would be if we had gotten the information from Moahmmed, and we didn’t. The Cheneyites rally around that assumption as a central reason for why he had to be waterboarded 183 times. Recall from the IG’s report that the reason given for the use of EIT’s often was the assumption of what the prisoner should know. At best, I would characterize the statement as a working hypothesis with significant support but which is still unverified at this point.

Excussse me it’s Torture/Murder which is dick’s undoing .
If they were HVD and after the first one died during questioning was there an adjustment in the POLICY?
How can you stop the ticking time bomb if the information died with the heartbeat of that HVD?
!08 Murders or less made Gacy a serial killer so dick isn’t because he was the OVP or some bullshit?
Tracheotomy kits goes right to intent and premeditation.
How many attempted murders did they revive to less of a mental state then when the Treasonous Torture POLICY was first applied to the SUSPECTS ?

The one thing about Soufan’s testimony that I can’t reconcile in my mind has to do with Abu Zubaydah and conflicting testimony we’ve had about him since Suskind’s book, I believe. Soufan says that he and two fellow interrogators (one FBI, one CIA) got reliable intel from AZ early on, through conventional means, and I’m prepared to believe that. But what about the several reports we’ve had that AZ was already suffering from serious mental disability and not capable of supplying reliable intel? It’s precisely because I respect Soufan that I would like to hear that question put to him.

the professionals in the field are relieved that an ineffective, unreliable, unnecessary and destructive program — one that may have given Al Qaeda a second wind and damaged our country’s reputation — is finished.

Pakistan’s Musharraf survived after stating he thought bin Laden was dead; Musharraf was even given time to walk back his statement. Maybe it was early on in the GWOT. When did Cheney’s killer squads start?

The problem is that Bhutto repeatedly made statements that bin Laden was alive and kicking after she made the Frost interview. an al Jazeera reporter that interviewed her said that it was a “mis-speak” that she intended to say bin Laden follower, and ISI paid agent, Sheikh Omar killed Daniel Pearl.

The whole context of her statement in the Frost interview was that ISI was entangled with al Qaida. I hardly think that she was ballyhooing some sort of strategic success by ISI in infiltrating al Qaida in that Frost interview. She was talking about how they were corrupted and ineffective in dealing with either al Qaida or the Taliban.

Abd al Rahim al Nashiri:
“That is the reason why my mom, my father, my brother, and my family are in prison. The people in Saudi Arrabia they want me to surrender. That’s the reason I left Saudi Arabia and went to Pakistan. That’s one point. Regarding point number four, which talks about the plan to bomb the American ship in the Gulf, I had a project in Dubai regarding a ship. A business project. But I took money from Usama bin Laden to do this project. And at the end, Usama bin Laden asked me if I can use those things in military actions. But when I went to Dubai I ended the whole project. I sold the boat and I let the people go. I was able to do this project if I wanted to with the people on the boat and put explosives on the boat and send them to Yemen and bomb anything. But I ended the project. I wasn’t planning anything. I worked for six or seven months on the project as a business project. At the end I knew Usama bin Laden was able to use this project as the military tool. But I stopped everything and I let the people go. And what I had on my mind is to get married and live in Dubai. In regarding point number five. A relationship with people committing bombings in Saudi Arabia. They tortured me. [REDACTED]. They used to call me the “commander of the sea”. The(y) used to call me the “commander of Gulf”. He was in charge of the people there. When everything happened in Saudi Arabia or whenever explosions occurred. They use to tell me what relation do I have with those things and they use to torture me. And I have nothing to do with those things. Five years they weren’t able to get anything from me. I don’t know. Like not to admit what. Yes, I know those people. I know a lot of people in Saudi Arabia who do not want a military presence in Saudi Arabia.”
*snip*
emphasis minehttp://projects.nytimes.com/gu…..ages/87#23

Zubaydeh seems to have established several avatars in which he would retreat into under stress. It may be that the information they were were able to keep him framed in the adult persona, or distinguish between the several psychological frames he would fall into. To do that one would have to realise that they existed or to maintain the level of trust and reassurance.

But any information gained in interrogations should have been checked independently…always.

The assumption Soufan makes at the very end of the oped is the one I can’t swallow:

The inspector general’s report was written precisely because many of the C.I.A. operatives complained about what they were being ordered to do. The inspector general then conducted an internal audit of the entire program. In his report, he questions the effectiveness of the harsh techniques that were authorized. And he slams the use of “unauthorized, improvised, inhumane and undocumented detention and interrogation techniques.” This is probably why the enhanced interrogation program was shelved in 2005.

Meanwhile, the professionals in the field are relieved that an ineffective, unreliable, unnecessary and destructive program — one that may have given Al Qaeda a second wind and damaged our country’s reputation — is finished.

The NYT includes this bio note:

Ali H. Soufan was an F.B.I. special agent from 1997 to 2005.

Given that we KNOW that the FBI was withdrawing from/being forced out of CIA interrogations before 2005; given that we KNOW that a miniscule fraction (1%?) of even CIA know what was really happening; I don’t see compelling evidence that torture has stopped even now.

The Case for the Torture Apologists’ Argument depends on US believing that *Exigent Circumstances* moot the Law, much like self-defense excuses a killing.

Ianal, but this line of argument, imvho, breaks down when the *Exigent Circumstances* cease to exist. It would be not only non-logical, but a fantasy to continue to ’see’ *Exigent Circumstances* where they no longer factually exist – to continue, for instance, to ‘hear’ and ‘fear’ a burglar in your house, every night after a break-in.

Instead of ’standing down’ on using Torture in the name of self-defense – stemming from the original *Exigent Circumstance* – 911 – it appears that the Torture Program was actually developed and continued…to search for more *Exigent Circumstances* – in order to justify its continued use. This is commonly called ‘boot-strapping’ a false circular argument.

In this case, Cheney was specifically using the 1% Doctrine to ‘boot-strap’ – to ‘justify’ – the continued exploitation of expanded Emergency Executive Powers in a time of ‘War.’ Iow, he was artificially/deceptively prolonging the State of Emergency, so that he and Bush could continue to act Above/Outside the Law by claiming Law-mooting ’self-defense.’

So, generating ‘lots’ of reports and gathering infrastructure information on al-Qaeda becomes the fodder to run the Terror Alert Level up and down every 45-days, or so. According to the prevailing political winds, Bush and Cheney would simply inflate the Terror Boogeyman, on demand, to advance their Ideological Agenda by manipulating US, and the Congress, with fear.

Said another way, these guys were ‘boot-strapping’ *Exigent Circumstances* – it’s 911 all the time – in order to keep Torturing – under the cloak of National Security and State Secrets – for more *Exigent Circumstances.*

So, for instance, Abu Zubayduh was Tortured, imvho, on the ‘prospective’ future *Exigent Circumstance* of a follow-up attack on the first anniversary of 911 – but, there was nothing there.

KSM was Tortured during invasion month, Mar ‘03, on the ‘prospective’ future *Exigent Circumstance* of finding evidence of al-Qaeda in Iraq – but, there was nothing there.

The Torture Apologists say – ‘See, it worked – Torture worked to prevent another mass casualty attack’ by confirming that there were ‘no plans’ in the works before the attacks could have happened. So, I waterboard you to confirm what you don’t know, on the suspicion that you might know something important about a possible future event. If the Torture does yield info on a future attack – which it apparently never did – it’s a ’success’ – and, if the Torture confirms that there are no plans for a future attack – it’s a ’success.’

The circularity guarantees that they’ll Always be looking for the 1% Threat – using Torture – whether the 1% Threat is really ‘there,’ or not, but always finding ‘evidence’ that the 1% Boogeyman is still ‘out there,’ in order to ‘justify’ Bush’s continued usurpation of the checks-and-balances built-in to the Constitution.

The Bush-Cheney Torture Program, imvho, was an Illegal Policy ‘justified’ – boot-strapped – as self-defense predicated on a *contrived and false* Continuous State of Emergency. It’s a Horrific Abuse of Power, done in Bad Faith, in which Bush and Cheney cloaked themselves in Patriotism, only to hide Saddam-style, Depraved, Despotic Rule.

@rincewind #32:
The only thing wrong with your comment is the mention of tinfoil. We have evidence that torture continues now, under the Obama administration, not to mention past 2005 under Bush-Cheney.

Scott Horton reported on August 11 on the torture involved in the FBI rendition of a Lebanese man from Afghanistan to Virginia in a contracting fraud case. This news, though noteworthy for several reasons — torture conducted under the Obama administration, by the FBI, as part of “legal” rendition for a case not related to terrorism — was picked up, as far as I can tell, only by bmaz at this blog and mentioned on twitter by Dan Froomkin, who didn’t write elsewhere about it. [If there are other cites I’d welcome being made aware of them.]

In a follow-up post on August 28, Horton details how the tortures to which Raymond Azar was subjected were routine procedure (the far-too-widely-ignored “preliminaries” on which Mary has been a vocal conscience) outlined in a document that was part of those released by the CIA on August 24: stripped naked and photographed, shackled, hooded, subjected to “cavity search”, then subjected while imprisoned to hypothermia, isolation, sleep deprivation, threats to his family during interrogation, and finally sensory deprivation and shackling while being flown to the U.S.

These procedures have been part of the CIA torture paradigm for decades — employed in the Phoenix program with the U.S. military in Viet Nam in the late 1960s to early 1970s, taught to Honduran military intelligence in 1980-81 and used on the hundreds who were “disappeared” over the next decade, employed by Salvadoran military personnel against men and women captured in sweeps through the countryside. In 1989 I heard several women prisoners describe these exact procedures (supplemented by rape), and two of them were aware of an American man present at their interrogations.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that the CIA or the FBI have stopped using torture on prisoners. We have evidence that it is spreading, not ending.

Abd al Rahim al Nashiri is a 44-year-old citizen of Saudi Arabia. He was captured in the United Arab Emirates in Oct. 2002. He is one of 16 high-value detainees. As of Sept. 6, 2009, he has been held at Guantánamo for three years. He has been charged with war crimes.

The Case for the Torture Apologists’ Argument depends on US believing that *Exigent Circumstances* moot the Law, much like self-defense excuses a killing. Ianal, but this line of argument, imvho, breaks down when the *Exigent Circumstances* cease to exist.

It breaks down well before that: the Convention Against Torture, to which our government is a signatory, explicitly states, in crystalline clear language easily understood by non-lawyers, that “exigent circumstances” do not moot the law, and cannot form a defense for those who have tortured.

The relevant passages in the CAT have been quoted repeatedly here and cited by EW noting another blogger’s posting of them.

The argument radiofreewill is making is a political argument that might be useful in helping people see that the Cheneyite arguments from necessity are made in bad faith. But the legal argument starts and stops well before that, because there is no such thing as exigent circumstances removing or diminishing the criminal nature of torture.

It’s nice to see that piece, but one of the very frustrating things is that this is only a “finally” forum for somethings that MSM specificially avoided and neglected for years.

How hard has it been for anyone with a working thought process to respond to the “torture worked” crap (vis a vis the KSM crap in particular) with “then where’s bin laden?” It’s been said over and over and over, by all kinds with all backgrounds – said by almost everyone and yet, no on on the major news networks every responds to the chest thumping torture triumphalism with something that simple.

We have also kind of known for a long time, and since Soufan’s statements in the FBI report under his alias, then later in his direct sourced behind a screen Congressional testimony, have specifically known that FBI personnel having tremendous depth of knowledge were specifically excluded from the interviews of important detainees all because of the choice to use torture.

It’s on of the first things that Congress and MSM should have had in response to Cheneyco and others in the torture ventures post-testimony: How does deliberately picking a course that will exclude the best KSM expert we have available from participating in the interrogations – simply so that you can use torture, which will make him say anything you want him to say – how could that have ever been a good option to protect the country? How does foisting off the interviews of KSM instead to “Deuce” (who ends up having to use rapport buidling techniques anyway) and scheduling those sometimes days after the torture sessions with the “knuckle-draggers” (who apparently don’t even attempt interrogation DURING the torture sessions) – how is that a preferable alternative to having our best KSM expert involved in the interrogations?

And KSM, btw, would have known that the info we were operating under for al-Libi and Zubaydah was incorrect – so how is it that after all this torture and all this time, we still have the MSM and gov officials calling both al-Libi and Zubayadah “high up al-Qaeda leaders” etc.?

Good points on al-Nashiri vs the Yemeni prosecutions (and ot non-sequitor, but when is that Yemen/Saudi thing going to blow up?) and Soufan can and does make those in a way no one else has – but if the right questions had ever been asked it is something that might have come out much earlier. We do know, for example, on the yang to Soufan’s yin, and the “what we did discover from torture” vs what we didn’t – that, for example, the Pakistani conviction in the death of Daniel Pearl is now fair game to be overturned, bc we managed to “get” KSM to admit to not just a role in the horrific kidnapping, but to admit to the exact same role that someone else has already been convicted for and we somehow managed to never get anything from Saud Memon that can go into any record for the family, or resolve issues for the Pakistani appeal, or for the KSM trial or lack thereof. We “managed” to “get” information from torture that risks all the prosecutions and almost guarantees that we will know less and less rather than more and more. OTOH, I’m going to be waiting to see what the Pearl Project comes out with (and maybe they can explain how torture was necessary to their results when the come out).

We also “know” from torture, in one of the least probed issues ever, that al-Qaeda had training camps in Iraq – except, you know, for the “not” part. With the Lockerbie fiasco, it’s worth revisiting the fact that the way al-Libi ended up on our radar as a “high up” al-Qaeda as opposed to a run of the mill jihadi training camp operator, was that his name was offered to CIA’s Dep CTC guy, Bonk, by Libya’s Musa Kousa. As a “gift” to show that they were willing to work with us. Libya’s Lockerbie boy gives us al-libi’s name and status, his location in Pakistan – then we pick him up with the Paks by the next month. Cloonan is questioning him, things are going ok, then the CIA descends, claiming that he is Egyptian (uh huh, that’s makes sense, with the sourcing from Kousa and the name, al-libi, etc.) despite FBI saying nuh uh, he’s Libyan. Off al-Libi, who isn’t on the alQaeada governing council despite the info supposedly from al-Faruq that he is, goes to Egypt were we have a Clinton based history of sending guys for torture, although in those cases for torture and conviction under outstanding Egyptian warrants. Here, no warrants, so let’s just pretend he’s Egyptian as a reason for sending him there.

Anyway, I’m rambling off – but equally on target with the “what we didn’t learns” is the “what we did learns” of all the mis and dis information on which we based extreme actions, and all without involving people who knew what they were doing in the process. And Soufan finally having to go to an op ed page to point out the very simple and basic fact that MSM should have been all over for years now – that despite enacting a whole regime of torture, bin laden was never caught – is really frustrating even as it is nice to finally see this issue get placed into the MSM. Tack on to what we didn’t get – that bin laden was never caught – with what we did get – a reason to invade Iraq and kill thousands of American while killing many more Iraqis and creating a huge refugee crisis (that no one is addressing even still) and create a huge wealth shift at home towards corporate militarism and mercenaries and then weigh out the costs of torture.

With the benefits. After all, someone got to make Bush happy for awhile.

I tend to agree with lots of what others have said already so this is duplicative, but I’ll also add in that the bit about torture being over is where Soufan loses crediblity some. One of the worst outcomes from torture was the al-libi information and its use. Obama is on record now with specifically defending the ability of and advisability of, having the President of the US capture people it has no charges against and ship them to other state sponsors of torture. He’s on record with it – there’s no way to say he’s opted out of torture. Add in his Bagram approach and his devotion to air strikes in civilian areas and his use of office to promote the fact that torture isn’t a crime, it’s a Presidential policy decision and one that can be hidden from US citizens and Congress and courts on whim, and you can’t really claim that the Executive or the US has foresworn torture.

One part of Suskind’s book recites Bonk telling Kousa, about Lockerbie, pretty much what Obama has told us about torture. That it can be put in the past and we just go on as if it never happened. Tell that to the Lockerbie families. Then multiply those families by the families of not only Iranian airliner victim families but through and including Afghanistan, Iraq and the worldwide programs of disappearances, and only a fool believes that you can just walk forward and leave it all behind.

On Soufan’s terms [reflecting on the part of his Congressional testimony already made public, plus information attributed to him from the first New Yorker naming him, and information attributable to him concerning Zubaydah in Suskind’s 1% Doctrine], it appears he draws a distinction between interrogation “professionals” in the US government structure, and those Soufan clearly intends to be understood as ‘not professionals’–maybe ‘unprofessional’ is better. I don’t know that he’s said much one way or the other on that frequent subject of Jeff Kaye’s shrillness [meant as a compliment], the provisions on interrogations in the Army manual; which makes sense given the lack of particular expertise implied in that context. Similarly I don’t know of any suggestion that he’d include outside consultants and contracted forces in his assessment, not least because it would seem likely most if not all his continuing contacts with the interrogation ‘community’ would be with the “professionals”, as distinct from hacks & cowboys & psychopaths into whose charge the BCA commended Qaeda* detainees, High Value [that is, marketable] or otherwise.

[* I don’t know if this was conscious & intentional, but IMO the use of “Qaeda” is to be greatly preferred to “al Qaeda”. That “al” has the effect of a scarlet letter, comparable to say if The Times installed a variation on its naming protocol under which references to Hispanics would start with “Señor” etc & to French with “M”.]

But the legal argument starts and stops well before that, because there is no such thing as exigent circumstances removing or diminishing the criminal nature of torture

Exactly. This is part of how the Screwtape Memoranda opened so damn many doors. With Yoo reciting as facts necessary and relevant to his opinion that the detainee was a high up member of al-Qaeda with high level opeative knowledge about future activities etc. but then never addresses those so-called relevant facts in his legal analysis. And I know I belabor this, but his legal analysis was really no more than this.

You’ve come to us for a legal opinion on whether what you are doing is legal interrogation or illegal torture. We’ve told you that torture means severe stuff, but like, ya know, we ain’t docs or nuthin. You’ve told us that YOU ARE DOCS and have sent us some stuff saying that what you are doing isn’t like, ya know, severe stuff. So, based on you telling us that what you are doing isn’t torture, we are willing to tell you that based on you saying it isn’t torture, we’d say, fully relying on your representation, that okayyeah, it’s not torture.

Every time OLC looks at the physical and psychological impact, it rellies wholly on what the guys aksing for the authority or making money from the torture tell it. Why get an appraisal for closing on a house? If the seller says it is worth the sales price, that’s good enough for everyone isn’t it?

I couldn’t tell if Soufan’s comment about professionals was a not-too-subtle dig at those who used torture (the “unprofessionals”), or a pointed hint that the torture was done by those outside the profession, meaning contractors.

Which makes me wonder if the program he says has been shelved is the one by which the contractors were in charge of torture…?

MEMBER:
Just one more question. Do you consider yourself an enemy combatant against
the United States or our coalition partners?
TRANSLATOR: (TRANSLATION OF ABOVE).
DETAINEE
(through translator): I mean. I don’t know. The term enemy combatant is wide. It’s a big thing. If
you think that anybody who wants the Americans to get out of the Gulf as your
ISN#10015
Enclosure (3)
Page 28 of 36
UNCLASSIFIED
Page 29
UNCLASSIFIED
enemy, then you will catch about 10 million peoples in Saudi Arabia, that have
same opinion. That will mean, that I amone of those people. Why do you
interfere in the Gulf with all your weapons? That’s my opinion and the opinion of
everybody else in the Gulf. The people are asking by force for the people to leave
their land. I mean if you think that anybody who has this opinion is an enemy
combatant, then I don’t what to say. But anything other than that. I’m not the
enemy of anybody. Why I am I not fighting the Chinese? I don’t think of those
people as my enemy. Even you, the Americans, I don’t consider you as my
enemy. You are people like other people; the French, the Chinese. They are all
people. All people are equal. All people have the right to live. Nobody has the
right to send military to other countries. So when you ask me if I’m an enemy
combatant, I don’t think of myself as an enemy to anybody. That’s a legal right
for anybody to express his opinion. And I believe the Americans should leave the
area. Leave people, let people live their lives and let them live their future. We
do not, we do not have a Saddam. Somebody like Saddam in the Gulf. We need
to get rid of people who are like Saddam in the Gulf. And let the people live their
lives. Your policy is wrong. You come and support these governments. So the
people are very angry at you. I have no idea how you classify us as enemy
combatants. I don’t understand that. I do not think of myself as an enemy to
anybody. I see all people to be equal. Anybody who comes to my land, I will ask
them to leave. Why are you coming here with your Army? There are businesses
there between countries. And they deal with each other. That’s what I mean. So
I don’t know how you classify people as enemy combatants. How do you classify
people as your enemy? And people not your enemy. What do you base that? Do
you call anybody who ask you to leave from the Gulf as an enemy combatant?
Your enemy. Everybody in the world is telling you to leave. Everybody in the
world is asking you to leave. Not only the people in the Gulf. And, I think that is
a legal right that the people have. That’s what I mean by that.
MEMBER:
PRESIDENT:
MEMBER:
No more questions

Ali Soufan represents advocacy of traditional FBI investigative techniques, and a prosecutorial rather than a military/intelligence approach to terror. It’s impressive how far the goalposts have been moved, that he should be so.

The FBI’s initial isolation treatment of Muhammad al-Qahtani was torture. Cruel and inhuman, at a minimum. It was far outside anything that can be done to someone you are trying to make a Federal case out of. But the later learned helplessness treatment of him was torture to an incomprehensible and mind-boggling degree.

“So-called dirty bomber Jose Padilla”, and “terrorism suspect, Abu Zubaydah,” two great big parsing rugs to sweep stuff under. This is at the high level of the honesty we are likely to see in the Times.

RE: Saudi and Yemen thing. You did hear about the attempted assassination attempt of Mohammed bin Nayef, son of SA’s top spook? There was also a much less reported and perhaps totally not credible report that Bandar attempted a coup against Abdullah?

Didn’t you write an article on that? My recollection is that we theorized al-Nashiri is the one with only two tapes, but do not recollect what the basis for that was, i.e. whether it was speculation or based on a concrete statement somewhere.

Yes, I did write an article on it and said it was two tapes, that being based on what the ACLU was told.

But I thought in one of the posts some months back on the vaughn indexes there was language in there that indicated it could have been or was more than two. Going through the archives here, however, I couldn’t find that so I may be wrong.

On a separate note, great question you asked of Tom Ridge yesterday, bmaz. Disappointed he did not answer it.

Way epu’d. I definitely hadn’t seen anything on the attempted coup. Thanks for that link. Even with crediblity issues, sometimes the tales are told by the kind of stories being told and sold, more so than the tales themselves.

Thanks, FlyingTiger. Probably would have been clearer had I cited the relevant passages in the CAT, but I just did so a week ago and didn’t want to take the time to dig them up again. I’ll keep the links and text close at hand from now on, since this basic aspect of the situation keeps escaping attention.

Pretty remarkable that the Office of Professional Responsibility report took four years to produce, because it’s hard to see how this language would allow anyone to believe that memos purporting to legalize torture could be written in good faith:

[from Article 2 of the C.A.T.]:
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

This is clear enough that the torture lawyers’ only real option was to define what they were authorizing as not being torture. But, inconveniently for them, the Convention’s prohibition on cruel and inhuman treatment is as absolute as the prohibition on torture; those drafting the Convention were well aware of the potential for torturers to claim that they were in some grey area. There is simply no way to pretend that the practices they were purporting to authorize were not the very ones the CAT was created to prevent.

The principal purpose of the Convention is to remove the discretion involved in prosecuting acts of torture and to bar the very excuses which every torturing society proffers and which our own torturing society is now attempting to invoke (”we were dealing with real threats; there were ‘exceptional circumstances’ that justified it; we enacted laws legalizing the torture; our leaders meant well; we need to move on”).

No. [cites article 2 quoted above] The prohibition of torture has a special status in international law. It is part of customary international law, which means it is binding on all states, whether or not they have ratified any of the international human rights treaties.

The prohibition on torture is also a “peremptory norm,” which means that it cannot be overruled by any other law or by local custom.

From page 19 of the U.S. government’s 1999 report on U.S. implementation of the Convention to the UN Committee on Torture:

A number of federal courts have also recognized that the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is an accepted norm of customary international law…

…the torture lawyers’ only real option was to define what they were authorizing as not being torture.

Well, remember they also tried to claim the CATs were not applicable to the GWOT’s non-state actors by interpreting (yes, in bad faith) the CATs as applying only to signatory states per se. So at least two forks were pursued there.

Does anyone wonder why torture existed under multiple administrations, from Truman to Obama? The pro-torture crowd is not limited to Cheney, or the GOP, or the Pentagon, or the CIA. It is a wide-ranging constituency that is united in one thing only: to maintain U.S. world-wide supremacy at any cost. Whether it was Operation Chatter, or Bluebird, or Artichoke, or MKULTRA, MKNAOMI, or outsourcing the training of torture to South Vietnamese, or Chileans, or SAVAK, or Brazilians, or Greeks, or Salvadorans and Guatemalans, or whether it was CIA, or JPRA/SERE, or Special Operations, or Ft. Huachuca, AZ, it was all about torture, and supported by a wide-swath of the ruling and military-intelligence elite, Democrats and Republicans alike.

This is why a far-ranging investigation is not about to happen. This is why there were no calls to prosecute the head of the CIA when in the 1970s he admitted he destroyed boxes of evidence on MKULTRA. This is why they fight today to suppress any real investigation. The press, the enablers of this policy, also have nothing to gain, and plenty to lose, by letting an investigation go the whole hog.

Ali Soufan fights for the supremacy of the FBI, which he equates with the well-being of the United States. He is a shaky ally of anti-torture forces, because he decries the barbarities unleashed by the SERE program. But the FBI is not against all forms of coercive interrogation, and has been known to work with many other agencies using dubious techniques. In the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, he clearly stated that the FBI techniques were themselves not Geneva-compliant. I have yet to hear Mr. Soufan speak out against the use of isolation, or sleep deprivation, or manipulation of phobias, as used in the Army Field Manual’s Appendix M. Also, to take credit for information gained while the “good cop” to James Mitchell’s “bad cop” does not endear me to Mr. Soufan. Also, we keep hearing about the information from Mr. Zubaydah, who was later proven not to be a member of Al Qaeda or the Taliban at all. From this, Soufan still touts his intelligence coup: Jose Padilla. Enough said on that.

The torture issue is intricately tied to the fate of the entire post-World War II U.S. foreign policy, and the consolidation of a national security military-industrial-intelligence apparatus. The criminals are in their second and third generation. No one yet has stood trial for their crimes. They believe they are untouchable, and who knows, they may be, under current circumstances. They have the current president in their back pocket, and the Democratic Party Congressional majority, outside of a few belly-achers, is compliant.

Only when the political opposition is ready to take on the whole of the military-foreign policy of the Pentagon and its powerful contractor-industrial-technological base will we be able to see real change. Even after a major election and the defeat of the Bush and the GOP, the U.S. maintains high troop levels in Iraq, and is expanding the Afghan War. We still hear next to nothing about serious operations in Columbia and the Horn of Africa. — Shameful!